Cholesterol studies highlight heart conference

Crestor currently has about $3.5 billion in annual sales--an impressive performance that's still dwarfed by the nearly $13 billion in revenue Pfizer Inc. gets from its Lipitor, which loses patent protection in a few years. But even in the top-selling drug category in the United States, competitors are constantly jockeying for an advantage they can promote to boost their sales over those of rivals.

One reason for interest in the 18,000-patient study, called JUPITER, is that it was halted several months early because a clear benefit was shown. The study compared the 20-milligram, or second-lowest, dose of Crestor with a placebo in men and women 55 and older who had relatively good cholesterol levels and no heart disease or other serious health problems--a generally untapped market for cholesterol pill makers. The patients did have elevated levels of a substance called C-reactive protein that's linked to inflammation of blood vessels, but doctors now are starting to think it's more a sign of trouble than a cause of heart disease.

Dr. Howard Weintraub, head of the NYU Langone Center for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, said the results are particularly important because this is the first Crestor study looking at whether the medicine prevents heart attacks and strokes, rather than just controlling cholesterol.

Positive results could help overcome bad press Crestor has gotten because at high doses it has been linked to a dangerous, muscle-weakening condition called rhabdomyolysis.

The official results don't come out until Sunday, when they are being published online by the New England Journal of Medicine, followed by an afternoon presentation at the conference in New Orleans, which runs Saturday through Wednesday.

Analyst Steve Brozak of WBB Securities said analysts have "very, very high expectations" for the study and that if the results are good, they will enable AstraZeneca to further ramp up sales and promotion of Crestor.

Edward Jones analyst Linda Bannister said JUPITER is the "most anticipated study" at the conference and that positive results could increase the number of patients put on statins, the class of cholesterol drugs that includes Crestor, Lipitor and Zocor.

"Crestor has the most to potentially gain coming out of AHA this year," Bannister wrote in an e-mail interview.

Other study presentations drawing strong interest include: